Not into hands which could cast one
ray of honour on a devoted head. The contrast between the sane
service--giving men she admired, and the hopping skipping social meteor,
weaver of webs, thrower of nets, who offered her his history for a
nuptial acquisition, was ghastly, most discomforting. He seemed to have
entangled us all.

He said that he had. He treated me now confessedly as a cipher. The
prince, the princess, my grandfather, and me--he had gathered us
together, he said. I heard from him that the prince, assisted by him in
the part of an adviser, saw no way of cutting the knot but by a marriage.
All were at hand for a settlement of the terms:--Providence and destiny
were dragged in.

'Let's have no theatrical talk,' I interposed.

'Certainly, Richie; the plainest English,' he assented.

This was on the pier, while he bowed and greeted passing figures. I dared
not unlink my arm, for fear of further mischief. I got him to my rooms,
and insisted on his dining there.

'Dry bread will do,' he said.

My anticipations of the nature of our wrestle were correct. But I had not
expected him to venture on the assertion that the prince was for the
marriage. He met me at every turn with this downright iteration. 'The
prince consents: he knows his only chance is to yield. I have him fast.'

'How?' I inquired.

'How, Richie? Where is your perspicuity? I have him here. I loosen a
thousand tongues on him. I--'

'No, not on him; on the princess, you mean.'

'On him. The princess is the willing party; she and you are one. On him,
I say. 'Tis but a threat: I hold it in terrorem. And by heaven, son
Richie, it assures me I have not lived and fought for nothing. "Now is
the day and now is the hour." On your first birthday, my boy, I swore to
marry you to one of the highest ladies upon earth: she was, as it turns
out, then unborn. No matter: I keep my oath. Abandon it? pooh! you
are--forgive me--silly. Pardon me for remarking it, you have not that
dashing courage--never mind. The point is, I have my prince in his trap.
We are perfectly polite, but I have him, and he acknowledges it; he
shrugs: love has beaten him. Very well. And observe: I permit no
squire-of-low-degree insinuations; none of that. The lady--all earthly
blessings on her!--does not stoop to Harry Richmond. I have the
announcement in the newspapers. I maintain it the fruit of a life of long
and earnest endeavour, legitimately won, by heaven it is! and with the